Prepare action plan for PMC Bank similar to the one made for Yes Bank: Maharashtra speaker tells RBI

Maharashtra legislative Assembly speaker Nana Patole directed central bank officials to prepare an action plan to provide a relief to nine lakh depositors of Punjab

Maharashtra legislative Assembly speaker Nana Patole directed central bank officials to prepare an action plan to provide a relief to nine lakh depositors of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank. Patole in a joint meeting of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and state government officials on Tuesday asked RBI to keep in mind the interest of the depositors and chalk out a plan similar to the one made to bail out Yes Bank depositors. The speaker also directed authorities to provide fortnightly status reports on the website for the depositors.

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Patole, in the meeting held at Vidhan Bhavan, said, “The appointed administrator, arbitrators and RBI must take immediate steps to sell off the properties [seized of the accused in the case] and the sum raised [from them] be used in the functioning of the bank. Like RBI bailed out Yes Bank when it was in trouble, they must prepare an action plan to give respite to 9 lakh depositors of PMC Bank too.”

The meeting was attended by RBI’s assistant general manager Abhinav Pushp, state chief secretary Sanjay Kumar, co-operative department principal secretary Abha Shukla, and Siddhesh Pandey and Nikhil Vora who were representatives of a committee of PMC Bank’s depositors.

Over a year since the RBI superseded the board of the Mumbai-based PMC Bank after discovering major financial irregularities and fraud by the financial institutions board members, the RBI-appointed administrator is yet to succeed in finding a resolution plan for the bank. According to a statement by the speaker’s office, Pushp acknowledged during the meeting that several transactions of PMC Bank were not recorded at all.

Account-holders and depositors of PMC bank have alleged that the sense of urgency shown by the central bank in the bailout of the private bank was not shown to give relief to depositors of PMC Bank.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena legislator Ravindra Waikar wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union financial minister Nirmala Sitharaman to restart the activities of PMC Bank. Waikar in his letters said that it has been over a year that the accounts of “innocent investors” have been frozen for “no fault of theirs”. He argued that depositors are unable to withdraw their life’s savings in cases of medical emergency and for festivals.